The Yarkshire Gentlemans Cricket Club - Empire of the Dead

Off T'Wall or Off T'Trolley

T'Team ont Village Green

Long term followers of this blog may well have heard of these boys, back in June last year I ordered and received this magnificent set of figures. I am and always will be a historical gamer but every now and then a game will grab my attention and Empire of the Dead was that game.

EoD has a great back story, great figures and decent rules; a rare combination for something I would firmly place in the "weird stuff" category. I dip in and out of the game every few months painting some figures up as a bit of a change from the endless conveyor belt of similar uniformed historical minis.

Sadly I broke the barrel on the gun

For those who haven't played or heard of EoD its set in a Victorian Steampunk universe and the game revolves around various factions who fight each other, earning points to improve their faction with upgrades and allies over time. One of those factions is the Gentleman's Club representing those Victorian male only meeting places, these contained the rich, the eccentric and the mad, all three traits often appearing in the same person. In Literary fiction imagine the Diogenes Club from Sherlock Holmes and the like.

So for my Gentleman's Club, I needed an idea, not necessarily from the game book. Something to do with my now home county of Yarkshire. As well as hating everyone (Thanks Mr Cameron don't worry we love you too) Yarkshire is famous for Cricket (said in Geoff Boycott accent), hence the Yarkshire Gentleman's Cricket Club was born.

It helped that I had seen these magnificent chaps on tinterwebnet somewhere and they had stuck in my mind as a "must have them, no idea what I will use them as" purchases. The figures are available from Sloppy Jalopy the link will take you to the figures. They were designed for the Very British Civil War game (pre WW2) which makes some of the weapons a bit new, but hey this is "Weird stuff" so I am not going to have someone on TMP going on about "that rifle wasn't there and you'll find the hair cuts are 2mm too long for etc etc etc zzzzzzzz........."

King Geoffrey

Each of the figures has been named after one of Yorkshires Cricketing Hero's and who better to lead the merry band than the King of Yorkshire himself Geoff Boycott. It reminds me of a story which always makes me smile. When the Tour de France came through the Gods Own a couple of years ago they award a special shirt to the "King of the Mountains" one particularly dower Yorkshireman was heard to say "Tha can't have that, they'll have to change that, s'only one king in Yarkshire, Geoffrey Boycott !"

Prince Frederick Baron of Trueman

Sir Marytn of Moxon

Marquis Bairstow and Lord Dickie of Bird

The team can be bought in two halves or as a job lot of 12 figures representing a standard cricket team of 11 plus an umpire, the figures are armed with various weapons and the cricket ball has been replaced with a hand grenade. £8 for 6 or £15 for the whole team.

Young Squire Root

The Fielders, Root, Illingworth, Verity and Emmett

The Batsmen, Sutcliffe, Hutton and Close

The blue and yellow pin stripe are the official colours of the genuine Yorkshire Cricket Club and they have been stolen by the Y.G.C.C. I've been a bit quiet on the painting front for a while but I'm sure the mojo will return soon. Hope you have enjoyed these.

Empire of the Dead - Vampire Faction

Westwind Productions

The Gang are here

Regular readers with know that weird stuff is not my normal bag, however after a month of Green Ochre and WW1 Turks I needed a change of scenery. I started some of these last year and my previous efforts can be found spread throughout this blog.

The Graf, The Missus, The Guardian and some Bats

These are of course from the Empire of the Dead range of figures from Westwind and very nice they are too. Nice clear detail and a joy to paint.

The Thralls

Painting single figures still feels a bit weird but it was a nice change from my usual conveyor belt method.

The Graf, nice sword mate, looking a bit peaky though.

The Missus, shes a looker

The Guardian

Thrall 1

Thrall 2

Thrall 3

Bats and gravestones, The End

So there we have a drift into weirdness, back on track with some 15mm SYW on the paint table next.

Empire of the Dead - Holmes, Watson and the Ripper

Empire of the Dead - Holmes, Watson and the Ripper

The Evil Ripper cornered by the Good Guys

I have got a bit of time off work coming up and was keen to get these last three figs done before holidays. Regular readers will be aware of my detour down the road of weirdness with EotD, these guys finish off the figs I need to play the introductory scenario (available as a free download on the West Wind Website )

The worlds favourite detective (close run thing with Eddie Shoestring !, google it young people and none English types) in all his front and back glory.

Trusty sidekick Dr Watson, with an impressive back pack of weapons.

And finally (cue comedy booing) the evil one himself, The Ripper, Member of Royalty, Surgeon, Liverpool Businessman, Polish Immigrant or Judas Priest song who knows ?

Game looks fun, hopefully Junior will like as well, got a couple of the box sets to have a go at if he does.

Empire of the Dead - Organ Donors (civilians)

Empire of the Dead - Organ Donors

Regular readers will know that over recent months I've been wandering off into the unknown with a bit of Steampunk stylee EotD. I'm slowly building up the figs for the introductory scenario with The Ripper vs Holmes and Watson. Having been gaming for 35 years or so this is the first time I have painted figures one at a time and its a bit weird to say the least.

I got these figures from Old Glory In their Blue Moon 28mm range found here , quite good value for "fantasy" figures at £30 for 20 figures. I have found these considerably better than the usual Old Glory fare who in my experience have often suffered with poor quality metal and bad castings from worn moulds, therefore I was pleasantly surprised at how little cleaning up they needed.

Newspaper seller - things are weird in the world of EotD, Bradford City won !

A lady from the Temperance Movement fights a losing battle with a drunk

These 10 figs will act as victims in the first scenario, their organs earmarked for harvesting by the Ripper, although he might give the drunks liver a miss. There are 10 more to paint in the box.

The Tramp (hobo) painted with the aid of smellovision

Working Men - Sweep, Postie and Organ Grinder

The Ladies, Old Woman, Nanny and Washerwoman

And of course, baby

Empire of the Dead - The Police

Empire of the Dead - The Police

Woop Woop here come da Police !

I picked these figures up in true Yarkshire fashion, on't cheap on t'fleabay. Not from West Wind who do the "official" figures, these are old Foundry figures very nice too. However unlike GW I don't think West Wind will try and sue me for using none "official" figures. They aren't as detailed as the WW sculpts and are quite broad shouldered giving them a cartoon feel, however for Steampunk that ain't a bad thing.

I've used milliput to make the cobble street effect on the bases, thanks to Simon Quinton on the Carry on Painting group on facebook for the idea. There is quite a big mould line on the Sgt figure holding the lamp, I didn't notice it while painting, in the flesh its hardly noticeable.

Quite straight forward and quick to paint, after all its just one main colour. Main difficulty is getting the right shade, I used a 50 50 mix of Dark Prussian Blue and Black (vallejo) as a base and built it up by gradually adding Dark Blue Grey to the mix.

Spookily whilst putting this blog post together my main EotD order arrived at the front door, get ready for more weirdness over the coming months.

Empire of the Dead - Gallows Hag

Empire of the Dead - Gallows Hag

Reet into these figs, this one was picked up on cheap on fleabay, great figure to paint it actually looks scary.

My armed Cricket team have showed up for my Yarkshire Gentleman's Cricket Club faction, they will of course be led by Sir Geoffrey of Boycott with able support from Sir Dickie of Bird, Sir David of Bairstow, Sir Martyn of Moxon, Sir Herbert of Sutcliffe, Sir Frederick of Trueman to name a few.

Wayland Games have emailed me to say they haven't got the stuff I want and delivery will be delayed, what a surprise !

Didn't realise how popular EotD was, the Professor Erazmus post last week had more hits than any of the stuff I've done in the past.

Empire of the Dead - Professor Erazmus

Empire of the Dead - Professor Erazmus

This is very much not my usual fare. Things have been quiet on the gaming front at the mo here in Castle R, working shifts myself limits the time I am about when "normal" people are around. Various people dropping out has meant no gaming for a while, added to that the painting is a bit slow, I am in the middle of a 24 man AWI unit which always takes me ages and I have 14 28mm Desert vehicles on the go at the same time. I'm getting all of them to a gaming standard ie plain desert yellow, before putting camo and decals on. Not much to blog about as a result.

So as a treat I painted this gadger up in one go just to get something finished. My lad, 14 has expressed an interest in EotD and the figures and concept is great. This is a free figure I got with the rules book, it was quite fun to paint as a one off, usually I'm painting a unit of figs in batches of 6 to 10 so just concentrating on one fig at a time was something new.

I've ordered some more (from Wayland Games, cheap but very slow), I'll keep you updated on the new project after promising not to start any new projects this year, oh shiny why hast thou taken my money again !